The Cavern's Secret
by L.Q. Brooks
Summary: Book 2 of 7. With Buck and Beetee gone, the animals must survive on their own, and they soon find out that there is a hidden prophecy written for them. Rated T for brief language. LOOK OUT FOR "PRISONER OF THE STONE" TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
1. Hitching a Ride

1. Hitching a Ride

Sid sat down on a nearby rock while Manny and Ellie had a moment of silence for their friend, and Diego was comforting Peaches. It couldn't be true: Buck was stolen, and was probably killed already, and Beetee had left them, alone, with dawn breaking down onto the dinosaur world. Everyone seemed to have changed during the Quarter Quell. A complete change of mood, you might be able to call it. The animals who were vicious turned soothing, and the other five became silent but deadly..wait, no, that came out wrong.

The sloth was thinking about what Sarah had said a few moments ago. " "Jesse, you wicked man! How could you lock me up for so long?! People of the Ice Age, you must find Buck. Jesse will stop at nothing to kill him. For he has taken the form of one of his sworn enemies, and if he is killed again, there is no taking him back. I'm sorry." She must have meant that if Rickchaw was to kill Buck again, they could not bring him back to life again. Of course, they couldn't anyway. Beetee was gone.

The words just didn't fit right: Beetee...gone. It just didn't make sense. Buck and Beetee were the most loyal friends, and they were both gone and would probably never return. They just had to get them back! But first they had to get home. Sid told the others what he was thinking and they seemed a little not sure about it. Probably because they were lost and had no idea how to get back. If Buck were here he would probably think of a way to escape, but he wasn't, and they had to stop mourning about it. They just had to accept the fact. Buck was gone.

Finally Diego had an idea. "What about a pterodactyl? Isn't that, like, a flying dinosaur?" Everyone stared at him in wonder. "What? Even IF I was in a saber pack I still took History in school!" "That's not what we're staring at you for. You're asking if you can get picked up by your little dinosaur friend and fly us to the Ice Age, where all the meat is?" Manny inquired. Sid started to grow a smile on his face. "Oh no, Sid has another idea. TAKE COVER!" Ellie yelled. But Sid said calmly, "You want a dinosaur friend? You got it."

* * *

ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAARR RRRRRRRRRR! There were two roars. One from Sid, (it was extremely annoying), and one from...do I need to say it? Mama Rex. The big red monster charged onto the scene, suddenly silent. "We need you to take us to the Ice Age! Can you do it?" Sid asked. Mama seemed to nod and brought each of the animals up with her teeth. When they were all on board, she started off. "Wrong way!" the sloth yelled. The T-Rex stopped a moment in confusion, then ran the other way.

It took a few minutes to get to the entrance for the cave, and when they got there they got off Mama and started walking down the walkway. When they got out, they found an angry Fast Tina looking over her dead husband, Tony. But that wasn't the worst part. The Ice Age was completely attacked and looked old, all thanks to the Careers that took all their friends.

**AR: **I'm back! Did you miss me? Haha, I bet you did! If you didn't, hi, I guess! Yeah, um...ok bye.


	2. A New Mission

2. A New Mission

The animals weren't the only ones with a new mission. You didn't forget about Scrat, did you? In China? Yeah, didn't think you did. He went to a yoga class across the ice. He learned some ninja moves (it was a...very...strange...yoga class) and found a way to get back to the other side where his precious nut was waiting for him. He ninja jumped from the class to the hole and dived down. Layer by layer, he soared like a comet in orbit, flames covering his fur. He was halfway through when something stopped him.

He was starting to be pulled back! Just another thing to keep him away from his acorn. He tried to hold on, but the pressure was too strong. His hands started to shrink because of said pressure, and finally he just couldn't take it. He let go and got stretched all the way to China, then farther. His time in space was even worse than his time in China. Grrrr.

* * *

"What the..."Ellie said, looking around at the mess the Careers created, and Fast Tony's corpse...it was all to much too bare. "It looks like my saber pack has attacked it. These Careers are good. I'm surprised we beat them," Diego thought. "It's sort of like a video game," Manny decided. "There's always a boss at the end of each level. What do you think it will be this time?" "I don't know, but all I do know is that it's not going to be pretty," Ellie answered. Manny looked at what the Careers left them and nodded.

Fast Tina looked up at the animals with a soft smile, like she was trying not to lie, but it being hard. "The Careers. Yes. They attacked this place just seconds before you ran like wee little chickens into the less dangerous world of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are dangerous too, I won't fight that, but you are usually the ones who s_ave _the world. Not run from it." "Can you tell us what happened while we were gone?" Sid asked her, and her smile grew a crack bigger. "Well, alright.

"The Quarter Quell had just begun after my husband was killed, right? Well, when all those killers appeared, you ran for your lives. They were closing in on me, determined to kill me too. But I wouldn't accept it. Since you all were gone, I kicked Vitiosus in the nose and injured her a tad. I tried to slow them down but couldn't. Rickchaw got so mad at what I had done, he had all the Careers wreck the place, snowflake by snowflake, ice cube by ice cube. It was horrible. The only reason I wasn't killed was because I used some of my husband's tools to dig a hole and I hid down there.

"I heard a bit of what happened, but not everything. When I went back up to check up, I saw them running towards the Walls of Myth. They came back laughing and muttering. Then they ran into the dinosaur world, so they could attack you too. And I have to give them this, they did a pretty good job of it. With Manny's tail and all those scars, I have to give them credit. Then something came to me: whatever they wrote on the walls of myth, they had to be for you guys. I could figure that out myself. You have a new mission."

**AR: **New missions are awesome. Aren't they? Walls of Myth missions are even better! Well, I wouldn't know, but the animals should know! It's...it's sort of like...um...bye.


	3. The Electric Storm

3. The Electric Storm

This would be a dangerous task. A very dangerous task, indeed. To fulfill a prophecy left by the villains? That didn't seem to be the smartest idea. And yet, they had to do it, for Fast Tony. And Fast Tina, of course. She seemed to be the least happy about Tony's death, so they had to do it for her. Manny, though, wasn't quite sure about it. After what happened to his earlier wife and child, he couldn't have them do such a dangerous thing without a fight. He had to explain it to them.

"Look, maybe this isn't the best idea." Ellie just stared at him. "You know, going to the walls of myth? You know how dangerous this can be! There's, like, three dangerous chambers with lava, lightning, and who knows what else? You just can't do this. Especially with Peaches," he continued. Finally Ellie spoke. "We took Peaches to a world with dinosaurs, we survived a meltdown, AND you guys survived a pack of sabers! You even made one of them your friend! This will probably be the least dangerous thing we've done!" She had a point.

Sid and Diego continued packing while Peaches fiddled with a stick and fell over on her back in the process. "Come on, Manfred. This is the least we can do for Tina and Tony," Diego smirked. Manny rolled his eyes and said, "This is the MOST we can do for Tina and Tony!" Diego was silent for a moment, then continued packing. Manny sighed and said he was sorry. "Eh, it's okay, Manny. If you don't want to go, it's fine, but you would be helping a lot," Sid told him. "Come on, Manny. For Tony," Diego continued. Manny looked at all his friends and sighed again. "For Tony."

* * *

The walls of myth's first chamber was a good six miles away. That is a long walk, especially for the fat guy. "Ugh, I shouldn't even try." Good job, Manny. Anyway, when they got to the first chamber they were completely pooped. "Hey, what say we just set up camp here? It's late and if we want to survive the rest of the journey we'll need more than wits," Diego concluded. Everyone else agreed and they started finding logs. Manny and Sid soon recognized the place as where they first camped out. Ah, memories.

When the log shelter was built, it started to sprinkle rain, so everyone huddled around Manny while he started to fall asleep. He didn't have the best of dreams. It was about what Jesse would do to Buck, or what he WAS doing. It went sort of like this.

The evil vampire, Jesse, began by saying, "Haha, Buck! You will have a lot of friends where I'm taking you." Then Buck was put in this small cage and thrown into a big cell. "You're next, Manny," he said, looking straight at him. His voice seemed to echo, continuously saying "Manny! Manny! Manny!" He said it about five times before he woke up from his nightmare to Ellie telling him to wake up, saying, "Manny! Manny! Manny!" Finally his eyes fluttered open and he got out of his shelter. It was raining.

"Geez, why'd you wake me up!? It's raining! I'm going to bed," Manny said grumpily. "No! No! Look up! Don't you see?" It took all his strength to tilt his head backwards up at the sky. He got some water in his eyes, then he saw a slight glow. He squinted to make sure he was seeing correctly. The glow seemed to shine brighter by the minute. Finally it was as though two figures became shadows, like an eclipse. Finally the glow ended abruptly, and a boy and a girl stood in front of them. "Miss me?" Beetee asked.

**AR: **Ah, I love the parts that you want to happen from the beginning. For instance, one or two part from each book I am thinking of right now. Anyway, DID you miss Beetee? Bet you did. I bet you did.


	4. The First Chamber

4. The First Chamber

"Beetee! You ditched us! Do you have any idea what we went through?" Manny screamed as soon as the figure became clear. "Actually, no, Manny. We didn't go through a lot," Sid inquired. Diego rolled his eyes at both Manny and Sid. "Look, I understand! I get it! But, check it! Guess who this is?" Beetee demanded. Manny scanned the girl three or four times from head to toe. "Um, Sarah?" The girl looked up at Beetee and giggled. "No, actually this is a girl named Wiress, the one I was telling you about."

"Tick tock," Wiress said, then giggled again. She looked thirty, so it was supposed dead people don't age very much. She WOULD be ninety. Life and death just don't work that way. "Well, hello Wiress! Pleased to meet you!" Diego said, putting out his paw. Wiress shook it and walked over to Sid. "Hi!" said Sid, saying nothing else, not even making a gesture. The mammoths just nodded at her. Wiress smiled, unsure, but then began giggling again. "So, Wiress died in the third quarter quell, and, like I brought Buck, Sid, and Diego back to life, I brought HER back to life," Beetee continued.

"Yes, it is true. Life in District Three was always very difficult, but somehow I managed to win the Hunger Games. It was just simple as that," Wiress stated, finally speaking. "It was _not _as simple as that! You wouldn't speak for three weeks after that! You wouldn't even speak for Caesar!" Beetee said, completely flabbergasted. Wiress merely smiled and lowered her head, watching four mice crawling over her shoes far over into a field of bushes. "Well then, now that we've met, what do you say we die in the chambers?" Sid asked.

"There's the first chamber! If we're going to find out the prophecy we might as well start now," Ellie said, looking over at Manny for approval. He just stared down at Peaches. "It'll be fine! We've battled dinosaurs and careers, and you're scared _now_?!" she yelled at him, making him stare at his wife immediately and muttered under his breath, "Fine. For Tony." He had to avenge his death and he knew it. Whatever he had to do, he just had to do it. He never believed in Tony, now he would have to believe in himself.

* * *

Scrat was having a miserable time up in space. He searched far and wide, but could not find one thing to help him survive. He would die soon if he wasn't careful. Finally, after walking for five hours on the moon, he saw what he was looking for. A tree, filled with acorns. He chuckled and started running towards it, jumping a few times along the way. He was only a couple craters away from the tree when he stared aghast at a new discovery: forty other squirrel/rats were guarding it from behind. He screamed in frustration.

* * *

The first chamber looked simple enough: a walkway gleamed on dark rock all the way over to the second chamber. Manny smiled, not realizing it would be this easy, but still, reluctantly, he stomped over to it. He knocked on the rock with his front left foot and stood up straight when it did not move, luckily enough. "All right, guys! Come on!" he said, taking one step onto the pathway. But as soon as he set his paw on it, there was a rumbling noise. Other than the pathway, all the rock crumbled into nothing left but a giant pool of lava forming on each side.

**AR: **Thanks to KaylaDestroyer for giving me the idea for the Scrat adventure. She has also been the one that wrote one review on each of my chapters so far. Thanks a lot for your help!


	5. The Prophecy of Ice

5. The Prophecy of Ice

"Whoa!" Manny yelled as he stumbled back. Ellie looked petrified, probably thinking either, "Oh no! My husband will fall into the lava pit!" or "Oh no! My baby will fall into the lava pit!" or "Oh no! I will fall into the lava pit!" Either way, her thoughts were dreadful. Manny continued staring at the lava and gulped all the air he had left. He stumbled back onto the path, took a deep breath, and, crazily enough, began to walk again. "Don't look down, don't look down..." he muttered under his breath, but it did no good. Once in a while he would look down and wince.

"You've got this, honey!" Ellie told him, thinking the complete opposite. Manny breathed in and out slowly, trying to keep his mind off it. Finally when he looked down he was to the other side. "YAY DADA!" Peaches squealed. The mammoth chuckled and looked over at the others. "Come on! It wasn't THAT bad! You can do this!" Ellie closed her eyes, put Peaches on her back, and courageously began to walk. Peaches, holding on to her mother tightly, looked down at the lava and winced like her dad. Finally they made it across as well without harm.

Manny smiled again. "Okay, Sid and Diego! You next!" Diego looked anxious, and Sid looked like he might have thrown up, but they did as they were told. Diego went first, and ran all the way to get it over with. When he realized he was still alive he looked back at Sid, as he was starting to walk across, but stopped when he got to the middle at looked up at the ceiling. Before saying anything, Sid screamed, there was a puff of smoke that came from the ceiling, and Sid disappeared.

"Sid!" Wiress screamed, and ran behind Beetee to be protected. Beetee took both his hands and wrapped them around her stomach, looking at what remained of the smoke in disgust. Finally one last scream came from the lava pit. A Sid scream. "No!" Manny yelled, but there was nothing he could do. He looked down at his toes, believing that if he had just brought him over he wouldn't have gone. Suddenly Manny heard some coughing and looked back up. Sid was crawling back up from under the pathway. "I've still got all three fingers and three toes," he said, smiling.

"All right, then. Beetee, Wiress, come on! Don't tarry any longer!" Ellie told them. Beetee nodded and began to walk, with Wiress not an inch behind. It didn't take them very long to get to the other side. "Cool! Now that we're all still alive..." Manny began. Here he looked at Sid, then looked away, "I say we go on to the next chamber! What do you say?" There was silence for a moment, then Diego said, "Aye." Then Beetee and Wiress said it, then Ellie, then Sid. Peaches only said, "Oi!" "Close enough! Let's get a move on!"

* * *

Scrat was still staring at all the people of his kind. He suddenly became very furious and charged at the tree. He was two yards away when ten of the scrats moved up in front. Scrat stopped abruptly, and looked at his opponents. It took all the strength in him, but he managed to grab a moon rock and knock one of the soldiers in the nose, causing him to fall backwards. Scrat chuckled and collected some more. When there was only five still standing out of the ten, he really began to move. Remember all those moves he learned in China? Well...

**SIDE KICK TO THROAT  
****SIDE KICK TO JAW  
SIDE KICK TO HEART  
SIDE KICK TO BACK OF HEAD**

And so forth, and so forth, and so forth. Finally he had all ten scrats down. But there were plenty more where that came from.

* * *

The second chamber wasn't as hard, as far as chambers go. It was actually six "Balls of Pain" along the passageway. The balls of pain swung back and forth, and if one hit you, you would instantly be knocked out for eleven hours. Sid and Diego got past pretty easily, but Manny and Ellie had a tough time. They almost got hit four times, but in the end, nobody was hurt (it almost hit Manny's tail, but then it was remembered that his tail was cut off). As for the third chamber, well, let's just put it this way: Mammoths Don't ALWAYS Remember.

"Look guys! There's the prophecy!" Beetee said, pointing to a far corner in the back of the room. The animals, Beetee and Wiress all walked over, and Beetee read the prophecy out loud.

ONE SHALL BE TRAPPED IN A THING THAT NEVER WAS  
TWELVE SHALL APPEAR ALL WITH A STRANGE CAUSE  
TWO SHALL COME NEXT AND LEAVE A DEADLY MARK  
ONE SHALL PREPARE TO DESTROY THE ICE AGE CENTRAL PARK  
AND ALL OF THE QUESTERS WILL BE TAKEN TO THE RATS  
BUT ON A SIDE-QUEST, THERE IS AN EASY TASK  
FOR SCRAT-

And underneath was a big picture of an acorn.

"So, if the prophecy is to be read outside the lines..." Manny began before he was cut off by Beetee. "Then some of the questers will die."

**AR: **Adieu! Until next time! Adios! And...uh...whatever else you want. Anyway, the next book will be even more exciting! I promise! Well, bye!


End file.
